Education Summit: STEAM's 'ah-ha' moments

Two years ago, Heidelberg’s Education Department and education professors Dr. Stacey Pistorova and Dr. Lindsey Haubert created a blossoming partnership with one Tiffin City Schools teacher, Jennifer Gressman, who collaborated to offer a STEAM curriculum to her Krout Elementary School third-graders. Today, the partnership has grown to eight teachers, and the sky’s the limit.

Three of the partner teachers – Jennifer, Samantha Demmerley, ’16, and Leigh Alvarado – joined Stacey to present The Heidelberg STEAM Initiative as the first half of the keynote for the seventh annual Education Summit on Thursday. The initiative, supported by a Martha Holden Jennings grant, launched TEACH-n-STEAM, short for Teachers Engaging All Students in STEAM, collaboration.

For the second half of the keynote, theatre professors Stephen Svoboda and David Cotter talked about incorporating the "A" of STEAM -- the arts -- into the classroom. Before coming to Heidelberg, Stephen and David worked at the Redhouse Arts Center in Syracuse, New York, where they created an innovative, engaging and successful arts program for students in a poverty-stricken district there.

The Education Summit continued on Friday with breakout sessions with the keynote presenters and several classroom teachers, including Kristie (Armstrong) Badik, '04, and Andrea Thiessen. Additionally, the Education Department held the initiation ceremony for its Alpha Psi Chapter of Kappa Delta Pi (education honorary).

Full story.